


Into Dust

by gracelikesdaria



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:21:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29154231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelikesdaria/pseuds/gracelikesdaria
Summary: (Named after the Mazzy Star song)This starts in "Jane's addition" where Daria pursues the feeling that her and Trent may be more alike than they think and offers to help with the audio for the multimedia project. The first part of this story is my first attempt of writing after quite some time so please don't judge the concept based on the errors and length of this initial opening. I promise the quality will get better and I can't wait to see where the story goes!
Relationships: Jane Lane/Tom Sloane, Trent Lane/Daria Morgendorffer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. The beginning of Possible Delusion

The red numbers blinked viciously at Daria as she strained her neck to check her alarm clock from her position on the floor, the movement becoming the only sign of life to be witnessed from her in the past half hour. The time was 11:30 on a Saturday and, with a week left to finish the project, she could still here Jane’s awkward mutterings about wanting to spend time with the new guy today. Tom was the name Jane had angrily reminded her when Daria had only used the most colorful and insulting language to describe him.  
Jane had insisted on the collaboration of this project, reviewing the advantages of having her artistic capabilities in the mix and even enlisting her brother’s help with audio. In theory, this was going to get them an A. Except, execution was proving to be more difficult as they were halfway to the deadline and both Lanes had still offered no contribution. Dejected, Daria turned to her computer. If Jane wasn’t around to work on that stupid project, at least she’d have some time to write.  
As she had left things last night, Melody Powers was just about to sever the head of one Captain Volkov with a guitar string taken from the orchestra she had just obliterated after discovering they were spies that picked up snippets of information at the lavish events they played at and yet were never hired for. _As Melody wound the string in her grip and Volkov begged for his life-_ No, Daria thought, deleting a chunk of text. Volkov wouldn’t beg, no man that had been so brilliant as to trick Melody would ever beg for his life.  
Daria sat back and surveyed her work for a minute. She had been adding and taking away for a while now. Everything she typed seemed juvenile, as though she was trying too hard to sound intelligent. The narrative was abrupt, and the sentences were stiff; she’d never give writing like this any attention if it wasn’t hers. The deep burning in her chest began as she stared at the screen ashamed.  
When the glare began to hurt her eyes, she pushed the keyboard away and span in her computer chair aimlessly. When the thing she was best at started to seem too difficult, she began to feel entirely useless and she couldn’t get anything done when she felt that way. Maybe that was the way Trent was feeling, she mused. Just last weekend he was saying how seriously he takes his music career, maybe all the new sound equipment was making him overwhelmed?  
Her room, for all its books and bones, seemed empty now that she wasn’t writing, and Daria couldn’t help but see Trent like this too. Long limbs stretched across an unmade bed with a guitar just at his fingertips, the faded color of posters matching nicely with the junk that filled up the rest of the space on his floor and didn’t bother his friends or even the girls he’d bring home and hush at the front door. Even with this chaos, he seemed alone.  
Daria didn’t want to feel like an idiot, assuming her and that cool guy she kind of liked were similar, even worse, _connected,_ but she thought she could at least test the theory, right?


	2. Incentive a la Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trent's spending time in the depths of self destruction when Daria shows up with pizza and a huge crush. He thinks it's pretty cute.

There were times when Trent wished he could just disappear. Not in the most obvious sense, he didn’t picture being removed from thin air or anything, but he thought that maybe he could just start to blend in with all the junk in his room. He could collapse under the bed like a pile of old hangers, next to the stack of music theory books he had gotten all those years ago and across from the duffel that was still half full after Mystic’s last tour. Maybe then the scraps of paper and cigarette butts that clung to every corner wouldn’t make him squeeze his eyes shut and press his fists to his head. Instead, he was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, sticking out as the only thing alive and warm as the silence roared in his ears. Where was Janey, anyway?

She wasn’t there when he got back from Monique’s that morning, but the easel showed him a writhing woman, with an unfinished cruel grin and not enough colour for the usual Jane Lane original so Trent was pretty sure she was okay. Probably with Daria. The woman on the canvas kind of reminded him of his on and off girlfriend, how her willowy form stretched gently against him until her warm skin had convinced him he was floating. It also reminded him of how he had been kicked out the as soon as she woke up. Things were more off than on these days.

The agonising quiet was finally interrupted by a knock on the door. It was muffled from Trent’s room, but it cut through his sulking all the same.

Opening the door, he knew he’d definitely smoked more than enough to just ease his anguish. No way was that Janey’s friend at the door, shoulders hunched and face scrunched as she blinked up at him, looking nervous as hell and carrying- _Oh. Pizza._

Daria looked down to speak, already wishing for violent death to come. “I would have brought a real bribe, but money just doesn’t smell this good.”

Trent heard the words but didn’t really put them together, he usually only got a mumbled _H_ ey from her. “Where’s Janey?”

That put a small frown on her face. “She’s with Tom.”

“Tom?”

“Cargo pants. He came around last weekend and you offered me hot water.”

Trent didn’t know if it was the pizza fumes or the slight annoyance in Daria’s usually monotone voice that cleared the fog in his brain, but the conversation they had in the kitchen came back with a punch.

“Right, Right. And I missed that audition.” Then Max gave him hell and the band hadn’t had practice since. But that was okay since it gave Monique more time to lecture him about sticking to commitments which made him feel worse about her setting up the audition in the first place.

“Too much relaxing and taking things as they come?” Okay, that earned her a chuckle, hindered by that heavy smoker’s cough that was so inherently him it made her a little weak. He liked how attentive she was, how she really listened to what he said. It was kind of a nice break from how him and Jane just yelled at each other from their rooms opposite ends of house. He wished they went on more rides together and missed when she was still too young to go out running by herself, so he’d have to go with her. He wanted to catch more of her before she went away like the others. She was even better than them so it would hurt more. Okay, too dark. New topic.

“What’s with the pizza?” As Trent said this, he realised they were still glued by the door, so he swung it open a little and stood to the side. Ugh, why were they so awkward together?

Daria hesitated. “Well, I thought it could be a good incentive.” She saw his confused face and continued. “I thought maybe you were struggling with the music for the multimedia project. I just think- "

 _Shit._ Trent stared without hearing her as she continued to speak. The voice inside his head calling him an asshole suddenly got a lot louder. How could he forget? That stuff he bought had been sitting there all week and he had forgotten. He played around with it for the first couple of days and it had started collecting dust just like everything else in this house. He wished she hadn’t brought her idea to him. It would just die along with all those lyrics that drifted into his mind and back out again. He was incapable of creating anything and now he had to mourn her potential as well as his. Except his just slipped and waned into the void again; he was killing hers.

“-but I get that you’re probably busy. Just know I don’t mind helping.” Wait What?

“I think it would be better if you helped out.” He hoped he looked sincere; he’d already disappointed her. He rested his hand carefully on her shoulder for good measure.

Daria looked shocked and Trent could see her face turn pink, but with what? Nervousness? He knew about the crush, it was cute, but he wished she would settle a little. Okay, it was time to try and ease things up. Act like the older one and take the lead. Even if it was in his usual lazy, noncommittal way.

“Why don’t we talk about it in the kitchen? I think we have some napkins left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is quite slow as I kind of wanted to introduce you to how I see Trent and where his head is at. He's also pretty mopey in this chapter which is a trait I think he probably shares with Daria due to his angsty lyrics. As I've wrote a bit about them separately now I'm really interested in exploring their dynamic more in future chapters, hopefully I'll be able to up the pace as well. I hope it doesn't seem like Trent's falling over Daria in this chapter, he's just a little down on himself in this one. Please let me know what you think, I'd love to hear your opinion. Once again, thank you for reading! x


End file.
